Friday, November 13, 2015

Sporting Internationals Go 3-1 in First Games of Break

Sporting Kansas City's four internationals on duty with their national team went 3-1 over the last two days as the international break kicked off.

The first game occurred yesterday when Kristian Nemeth and Hungary kicked off their European Championship playoff in Oslo, Norway against the Norwegians. Norway controlled the game at home, but a goalkeeping error by Orjan Nyland allowed Laszlo Kleinheisler to score on his debut with the senior national team. The Hungarian defense held out and Hungary took a 1-0 lead back to Budapest for their game on Sunday. A win, a draw, or a one goal loss when Hungary scores will see them through to next summer's Euros. Nemeth went 90 minutes for Hungary in the win.

The other three games all occurred tonight. Sporting's captain, Matt Besler started the game for the US national team in St. Louis against St. Vincent and Grenadines. Things didn't start well as the US fell behind 1-0 early, but the US came back though and scored six unanswered to win 6-1. Besler had a couple chances himself to score his first international goal, including a flick on header that hit the cross bar. Late on Besler actually moved up into the midfield and played much more advanced than any KC fan has seen him play after Jermaine Jones picked up an injury after the US had used all three substitutions. The US will now travel to Trinidad for a game early next week against Trinidad and Tobago.

Up in Vancouver, Marcel de Jong started for the Canadian national team as they were able to exercise some of their demons from last cycle against Honduras. The last time the two teams had met in World Cup qualifiers Canada just needed a draw to advance to the "Hex" but ended up getting destroyed 8-1 and were eliminated from the World Cup. Canada though got a deflected goal by Cyle Larin and the Canadian defense shut down Honduras to pick up a 1-0 win. Canada now gets to travel to El Salvador for their second game.

The lone loss from the first set of internationals came from Soni Mustivar and Haiti as they played on the road against Costa Rica. Mustivar started the game on the bench for Haiti. Costa Rica scored in the 29th minute to take a 1-0 lead. On the hour mark Mustivar was inserted into the game for Haiti for they were unable to find an equalizer and fell 1-0 on the road. Haiti will now get to host Jamaica in their second game in the group.